1. Field of the Invention.
This invention relates to improvements in the art of clarifying bottle-fermented wines, such as champagne, and more particularly relates to obtaining clarification by riddling the wine in the bottles in which it is fermented.
In the making of fine wines, and particularly in the making of bottle-fermented champagne, it is necessary to remove all suspended solids and sediment in order for the wine to have a sparkling, clear appearance. The sediment is the natural result of the fermentation process and includes yeast and other solid matter, often in the form of extremely fine particles which impart a cloudy appearance if left in the wine. The process of removing such sediment from the bottled wine has come to be known as "riddling".
The traditional method of accomplishing riddling involves placing the bottles in fixed supports having an inclined board surface through which are drilled a number of holes which receive the necks of the bottles to be riddled. Each bottle is grasped manually, pulled partway out of the supporting board, rotated approximately 90.degree., and then slammed back into the supporting board with sufficient force to dislodge solids from adherance to the interior of the bottle. The purpose of riddling is to deposit all of the yeast and other solids at the outlet of the bottle from whence they may be removed at a later time. Removal of the accumulated sediment from the bottle is conventionally accomplished by freezing the neck of the bottle, removing the temporary crown cap used during the fermentation process, ejecting the frozen plug of wine containing sediment and solids, and then corking the bottle.
The traditional method of riddling is very labor intensive, because the bottles of wine must be removed from the temporary cases in which fermentation takes place and placed one at a time in the holes in the inclined board rack. The bottles must be individually rotated several times a day over a period of several weeks. When the desired degree of riddling is accomplished, the bottles must then be removed from the inclined racks and placed on the neck freezing and disgorging line. Clearly, mechanizing the riddling process can result in significant savings in labor costs.
Attempts have heretofore been made to utilize mechanical apparatus for accomplishing riddling of bottled wines. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,056,014 discloses a rack formed for spinning rows of bottles and tilting them from one side to the other. U.S. Pat. No. 3,533,602 discloses racks which eliminate the spinning of the bottles, these racks being adapted to tilt the bottles from side to side and to vibrate the rack and bottles thereon to accomplish riddling. These mechanical rack methods of riddling are considerably less labor intensive than the original hand method. However, the bottles still must be placed in temporary cartons for fermentation, then removed from the temporary cartons one by one and placed in position on the racks, then removed one by one from the racks when the riddling function has been accomplished, and then returned to the temporary cartons for transporting to the neck freezing and disgorging apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,940 discloses a method and apparatus which eliminates a large part of the hand labor necessary with the mechanical riddling racks for removing the bottles from the temporary cartons and placing them in the racks, and from removing the bottles from the racks after riddling and replacing them in the temporary cartons. This elimination of hand labor is accomplished by fermenting the bottled wines in compartmented packing cases, tilting the cases from side to side to jostle the bottles, and vibrating the cases of bottles, with the jostling and vibrating serving to free the solids from adherence to the inner surfaces of the bottle as they settle to the outlet.
Different types of wine, and even different batches of the same type of wine, have different characteristics with regard to particle size, specific gravity, coherence and adherence. The vibrating action and the jostling action must be such as to dislodge the settling particles from the downwardly constricting inner surface of the neck of the bottle, in such manner that the solids will settle onto the crown cap or other member at the outlet of the bottle, for convenient disposing of the sediment as by freezing in a slug of ice. At the same time, to accomplish the riddling action in the least possible time and with the best possible results, it is necessary that neither the jostling action nor the vibrating action agitate the bottles sufficiently to stir the settled particles back into the main body of the wine. Accordingly, the number, frequency and magnitude of the jostlings and the intensity and duration of the vibrating action must be adjustable for obtaining best results with the particular wine being riddled.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,596,469 discloses a method and apparatus in which a further improved riddling action is accomplished by selectively effecting abrupt limited lateral movements of the bottled wine in a plurality of angularly related directions rather than just back and forth.